Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

TBG, are those Revotec fans, too? What make radiator?

Pjr wrote:Thanks - the inlet and fuel pump faces are unpainted and I was planning to clean back the exhaust ones. When I was painting it was difficult to be neat and tidy so I just painted it all and then thought I could strip it back to a heater edge. We will see if it works.

The heater outlet was as it came with the engine. I haven’t given that any thought but will look into that now. I have some different ones here.

Many thanks,

Phil

The heater outlet is the same as on my Plus 2 so I guess that is where then engine came from

cheers
Rohan

Rohan,

I think you may be right. I seem to recall it started life in a Europa, then a +2 and now in a s3. It’s probably got some great stories to tell!

I haven’t decided whether I will use the Smiths heater system or something more modern (as Rob alluded to - perhaps even the dual heater and a/c unit a few people have fitted), so I guess the shiny brass connector can stay for now.

Phil

I'm really interested to hear how you get on.

Corner weighting at Hofmann's

Giz - yes Revotec fans and controller. I got them from Demon Tweeks but they are available elsewhere. A beautifully cut stainless bracket for the fans also came with the kit. D

Oh and the radiator - quite beautifully built came from Coolex. www.coolexperts.co.uk

TBG wrote:1owner69 - very sorry to hear of your troubles. For what it is worth I have a REVOTEC electronic controller in the top hose and it works excellently. Out of the way of everything also. Available from all the usual suspects this side of the pond. D

I would like to put such a inline temperature switch but there is no room for such on my arrangement. The TTR swirl pot/filler that replaces the top hose leaves no room for splicing in a takeoff.

There are some fan switch units that place a capillary inserted in a hose end and clamped between the hose and the alloy tube extensions. But, this appears to be prone to leaks and I am not too sure about clamping down on a fragile capillary.

Looking at fan switches that insert the probe into the radiator fins. I have one from Derale but don't like defacing my expensive radiator with the probe insertion. Also, my radiator is so deep that the probe does not extend all the way through to allow it to be secured on its end, as designed.

I may just try to find a smaller otter switch that inserts into the original radiator port and doesn't extend the leads out as far, thereby fouling the bonnet edge.

Any space in the radiator outlet hose?

My daily driver uses the outlet temp to control the fan, which makes a lot of sense when you think about it. What you want to do is ensure the coolant going to the engine is cool enough to absorb the heat generated by the engine. This allows the engine to stay at the correct temp, rather than respond to it being too hot once than has happened.

mbell wrote:Any space in the radiator outlet hose?

My daily driver uses the outlet temp to control the fan, which makes a lot of sense when you think about it. What you want to do is ensure the coolant going to the engine is cool enough to absorb the heat generated by the engine. This allows the engine to stay at the correct temp, rather than respond to it being too hot once than has happened.

Not enough length on the legs of the L-shape bottom radiator hose to insert a take off either:

Presumably, with a sensor placed on the outlet the cut-in temperature for the fan would be chosen to be at a lower value than indicated on the temp gauge.

Oh joy!!

1owner69Elan wrote:Not enough length on the legs of the L-shape bottom radiator hose to insert a take off either:

Suspected that would be the case as a tight area, even in standard form, but don't know if you don't ask.

1owner69Elan wrote:Presumably, with a sensor placed on the outlet the cut-in temperature for the fan would be chosen to be at a lower value than indicated on the temp gauge.

I believe so. There probably some formula you can use to calculate it based of coolant flows and heat generation by the engine at idle/low speeds but probably easier to just set by trail and error, like if it was in the top hose.

Perhaps have a bung welded onto the swirl pot. I have the same setup and I suppose also the same problem, so I should pay attention.

Meanwhile, to be on topic, it's been several days modifying my trailer for tilt so I can bring the car home if it develops a problem while...um...hard at play. Here tested with a heavy car:

baileyman wrote:Perhaps have a bung welded onto the swirl pot. I have the same setup and I suppose also the same problem, so I should pay attention.

Meanwhile, to be on topic, it's been several days modifying my trailer for tilt so I can bring the car home if it develops a problem while...um...hard at play. Here tested with a heavy car:

honda-drop-compressed-2.GIF

On my tilt trailer the rectangular bed of the trailer tilts while the A frame structure can be left connected to the car towball in a similar way. In addition a couple of old motor bike spring / shock units control the movement between the A frame and the rectangular bed and hold it in the titled position until the car load pushes it down to the flat position in a controlled way. The spring / shock units have an over centre style movement so they don't try to push the tray tilted again once it is flat

cheers
Rohan

The best tilting trailers are in OZ! It's rare to see any kind of tilt here unless it's fifty years old. I do have a shock on the joint, though I think it could use a stiffer one. An old TTR double adjustable would be just right!

1owner69Elan wrote:Looking at fan switches that insert the probe into the radiator fins. I have one from Derale but don't like defacing my expensive radiator with the probe insertion. Also, my radiator is so deep that the probe does not extend all the way through to allow it to be secured on its end, as designed.

Last year I had my standard radiator recored and the company that did it begged me to not insert a temperature probe into the fins, which is what I had been doing before. The inserted probe had always worked fine but I never liked the idea much anyway.

My solution was to make a holder for the probe that allows it to lie flat against the radiator. The holder is P shaped as shown in the sad little drawing below. The probe is a tight fit in O of the P and the leg of the P has slots in it which are spaced to fit between the water channels in the radiator. Obviously, the flat areas of the leg sit between the fins. It's made of aluminium and painted black. Copper would probably be better but I didn't have anything on hand so decided to mock the idea up with some spare ally that I had. The mock up became permanent.

The teeth are long enough so that they fit through the full thickness of the radiator and can be lightly bent on the other side to ensure that the holder doesn't vibrate out.

Everything fits very snugly and it works perfectly.

Nick